He pressed where I’d pointed. ‘And how is that?’
I pulled a face and sucked in a sharp breath, careful not to overdo it. Mum was watching my every move.
‘And that?’ he said, looking over his glasses at me.
‘Ow,’ I said.
We went on like this for a while. I don’t like to boast but my performance was pretty good. I’d get a day off for sure. Maybe two. Hopefully, by then, old Skroopers might have forgotten the detention.
‘Okay, you can jump down for me now,’ Dr Pellow said.
I carefully got off the bed.
The doctor went over to his desk and scratched something on his pad. Awesome.
Prescription. That meant medicine, which probably meant a day off while it was doing its thing. I couldn’t believe how easy this had been – like taking candy from a baby. I could even fool a doctor into thinking I was sick. Maybe I needed to consider acting as a career.
‘What do you think it is?’ my mum asked.
I put my hand in my pocket and my finger touched the scab, my treasure. It was still in one big, beautiful piece. I would stick it in my book as soon as I got home.
‘I think,’ said Dr Pellow, ‘that we have a possibly severe case of appendicitis.’
‘Right,’ Mum said. She looked worried for the first time. ‘And what should we do?’
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we had better get this boy down to the hospital and take his appendix out, quick sticks.’ He finished writing on the pad, took off his glasses, tore off the piece of paper and handed it to Mum.
‘Are you sure?’ I said.
‘I’ve been practising for 45 years. I’ve diagnosed thousands of appendicitis cases and you’re showing classic symptoms. The abdominal wall is sensitive to palpation. There’s rebound tenderness. Pain in the right iliac fossa. I suggest we take it out.’
He walked to the door. We followed.
‘So that means an operation?’ I asked.
‘Well, we won’t get it out by magic. Don’t worry – I’m sure there’ll be lots of ice-cream afterwards. What’s your favourite flavour?’
I didn’t want ice-cream from this maniac. I wanted my body parts.
‘Maybe we can just see what happens,’ I said. ‘It’s sort of feeling a bit better already. Look.’ I poked myself in the belly and grinned.
Dr P. smiled, too. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be asleep. It’ll be a little uncomfortable for a couple of days but you’ll be back on the football pitch before you know it. I’ll see you in about ten days to remove your stitches.’
‘But –’ I said.
‘Bye-bye now.’ He closed the door on us. I looked at Mum. She was worried.
‘C’mon, mate. We’d better get you to the hospital.’ She put an arm around me. ‘I thought you were pretending.’
‘I was!’ I said as we walked through the waiting room. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I just have to ring work. Quiet for a minute.’
She paid the receptionist while she made the call.
My head was swirling. What had I done? How was I going to get out of this? All I wanted was a day off school. Now some dude was going to hack me up and rip my guts out. All because of Skroop.
In the car I explained to Mum what a mistake this was, that I was okay now. When we arrived at the hospital, walking across the car park, I beat my stomach with my fists.
‘See, it doesn’t hurt at all!’
‘It’s okay, mate. It’ll be over quickly. Like Dr Pellow said, you won’t feel a thing.’
We walked in through the sliding front doors of the reception area. There were people lined up in rows of orange seats. People who actually looked sick. They had white faces and bags under their eyes. Some of them were bleeding. There were kids screaming and old people drooling. This wasn’t a place to get better. I’d probably catch something rare and incurable here.
Mum spoke to the receptionist and we waited for ages for a nurse to arrive. I was a fox in a hole, a rat in a trap. I needed to gnaw my way out. I was usually a genius in these situations. Maybe I could cry? Brilliant. I threw myself on the ground and started bawling.
‘Oh, get up! Stop pretending and don’t be such a baby,’ Mum snapped.
I peeled myself off the floor, scanning my mind for the best excuse I’d ever come up with. My life was on the line.
Boom.
‘I have to go to school,’ I said. ‘I’ve got this special lunchtime reading club with Mr Skroop. It’s the first day and I’d better not miss it. It’s just me and him in the club so far.’
‘I thought you didn’t like him.’
‘No, he’s changed. He’s good. He’s great! And I have to go because –’
‘It’s okay. I’ll call the school,’ she said.
‘No, but –’
A nurse arrived with a wheelchair.
‘Hello, I’m Merrill. You must be Tom. If you can hop up in the chair for me we’ll have the doctor take a look at you.’ She was speaking to me like I was a five-year-old. I didn’t need a wheelchair. I wanted to be at school, sitting at my desk reading The Squandrel. I wanted to spend some quality time with good old Mr Skroop, my favourite teacher. Suddenly I loved fantasy books. I wanted to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in Elvish language. For fun. I tried to explain this to my mother as they wheeled me down a long corridor. We went through about 27 sets of double doors into an area that was like a parking bay. They got me to change into a hospital gown and jump up on a bed. Over the next five minutes, kids were wheeled in and out. Some of them looked like they had already been under the knife. I had to get out of there. These lunatics were going to slice ’n’ dice me. I sat up, ready to run, but the nurse grabbed my arm and jabbed a needle into it.
‘Just something to help you relax,’ she said.
I was going to tell her where to stick her needle next but things sort of went fuzzy. Then she put another needle in my arm and tied it to a board with a bandage. A clear rubber tube ran from my arm up to a plastic bag with clear liquid in it. Then I was wheeled down another long corridor, around corners. More sets of doors. They were trying to confuse me so I couldn’t escape. I tried to count the fluoro lights that flickered by above me so I’d know how to get back, but I lost count.
‘Stop,’ I said, but my voice sounded far away. I wanted to get up and explain to the nurse that I was just trying to get out of detention with Skroop. I’d made the whole thing up. Surely she could remember doing stuff like that when she was a kid. But I couldn’t move or speak.
The bed came to rest. There was a really bright, round light above me. I lay there for a few minutes. My mum wasn’t there anymore, but a doctor wearing a mask was looking down at me. ‘How are we today, Tom?’
‘Not good,’ I said, but it was slurred and sounded more like, ‘Nod goo.’
‘Just count backwards from ten for me, thanks Tom.’
‘Nine,’ I said. ‘Six … Three …’ Everything went warm and dark.
I woke up here. In a hospital ward. Pain yelped from my belly, just above the hip. I knew right away that they’d taken one of my favourite body parts.
I’d never really thought about my appendix before, but now that it was gone I really missed it.
I turned over onto my left side.
I screamed.
Not because of the pain but because sitting there, staring at me, was Skroop. Maybe I was still asleep, having a nightmare. Skroop didn’t belong at the hospital. He should have been at the graveyard scaring zombies or back in the classroom terrorising kids. He held up a copy of The Squandrel and I screamed again.
My mum appeared behind him at the door of the ward. She smiled. I didn’t smile back.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘What are you screaming for? It’s Mr Skroop. I told him how upset you were at the thought of missing Lunchtime Book Club and he offered to come down after school to see you.’
I looked directly into Skroop’s black, soulless eyes. He smiled a sickly, thin-
lipped smile. He knew there was no book club. With one knuckly, knotted hand, he passed me The Squandrel.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop by each afternoon to read you a passage.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘No, it’s no trouble. It’s on my way home from school. And your idea of a lunchtime book club is excellent. Maybe a fantasy book club, hey? You can be my first member.’ In my head I heard his laughter, Mwahahahahahaha.
He stood and smiled at me with those thin, porridge lips. ‘For now, you rest up.’
‘Say thank you,’ Mum said.
‘Ugoo,’ I grunted.
Skroop turned for the door. Mum followed, thanking him so much for coming. I lay there, trying to understand what had just happened. My life was a mess.
I looked over and saw a vase of yellow flowers on the bedside table. My school shorts were neatly folded right next to it. They reminded me of something. Jack’s scab. If there was one good thing to come from all this it was that I would be adding the biggest, most beautiful scab I’d ever seen to my collection. I half-smiled and reached up, sending a jagged knife of pain into my stomach. I groaned and grabbed the shorts. I rested them on my chest and reached into the pocket, waiting to feel that thin, crispy goodness. Wrong pocket. I tried the other one. I even tried the back pockets but found nothing.
‘Bye-bye,’ Mum said to Skroop as she headed across the room towards my bed. But Skroop didn’t leave. He stayed there in the doorway behind Mum, staring at me. He took something out of his pocket. It was wafer thin and golden brown, like a perfectly baked Anzac biscuit.
I watched carefully as Skroop did something unspeakable. He put the thing in his mouth and chewed it up. I had been given detention and lost a body part for that scab and now it was gone, eaten by my teacher. When he finished he wiped the corners of his mouth with a gnarled pinkie finger.
‘Cheerio then,’ Skroop said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ And he disappeared down the hall.
I’m walking down my street. I have an ice-cream container on my head. The container has eyes painted on the back of it and sticks poking out at weird angles. I can see kids at the bus stop through the rough-cut eyeholes. They’re laughing at me. Even Sasha, the cutest girl in Australia, who is supposed to be my girlfriend as of yesterday, is laughing. But I don’t care. I’ve had enough. I’ve been swooped too many times.
‘The ice-cream man is coming!’ someone calls. ‘Where’s your truck, ice-cream man?’
‘I’ll have a choc top,’ someone else shouts, ‘with hundreds and thousands.’
They’re real comedians, the kids on my street.
Some dude screams, ‘Watch out! Magpie!’ and points into the sky. But I’m so not falling for that old trick.
WHAM! The bird hits me, knocking the container off my head. Kids howl with laughter. I hit the ground and the maggie comes back for a second swoop. It’s deadly accurate, pecking me right in the middle of the forehead. Blood gushes from my head and dribbles down my face onto the grass. No one is laughing now. They are standing, mouths open, watching me. Except Sasha. She turns the other way, embarrassed. It hurts.
I am a magnet for magpies. I’ve been attacked three times in the past week, and it isn’t even spring yet. I’ve been swooped hundreds of times in my life and pecked about eight. I have three scars on my forehead, four on my scalp and one on my nose. I swear it’s the same magpie in the same spot every year – top of the telegraph pole right in front of my house.
Now Sasha thinks I’m a total lame-o, and there aren’t that many other girls lining up to go out with me. None, actually. I swear this is the last time I’m going to let this happen.
‘I think we should move,’ I say to Mum, looking up from my homework that night.
‘So do I, but no one will buy the house,’ she says, dipping her finger into the spaghetti sauce to see if it’s ready. ‘I thought you loved this house. Why do you want to move?’
‘No reason,’ I say.
She looks at me. ‘It’s the magpie, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ I say, running my thumb over the white surgical patch on my forehead.
‘They’re not vicious animals. They’re just protecting their babies. That’s what they’re programmed to do.’
‘Did you get swooped again?’ my sister asks, coming into the kitchen. She dumps her netball stuff on the ground and kisses Mum. ‘Sucked in. If I was a magpie I’d swoop you, too.’
‘Tanya!’ Mum snaps.
‘Why’s he such a loser? Who gets swooped by the same magpie every single day? Why doesn’t he just walk a different way?’
‘It’s right in front of the house,’ Mum says.
‘Well, I don’t get swooped.’
‘It probably heads south for the winter when it sees your face,’ I say.
‘I don’t like you,’ Tanya says. ‘The bird doesn’t like you. When are you going to get the message?’
‘Will you two please –’
‘What do you mean “you two”?’ I say to Mum. ‘I didn’t –’
‘You always have to keep it going, Tom. Go to your room and come back when you’re –’
‘But –’
‘Room!’ Mum demands.
I throw a pen at Tanya. It misses. I leave.
In my bedroom I peel back the blind just a crack to see if the maggie is there. It’s right on dusk but I can see it out there on top of the pole, shoulders hunched against the darkness. At that moment the bird turns and looks at me. It’s like it senses my every move. Its beady red eyes glow, glaring at me over that nasty, bloodthirsty beak.
‘You’re trying to ruin my life,’ I say quietly. I have a giant gash on my forehead. I’ve been ridiculed by my sister and sent to my room. Sasha told me at school that she won’t speak to me until I stop humiliating her. It’s all because of that bird. At this time of year it doesn’t even have babies to protect. It’s the middle of winter. This is no ordinary magpie doing natural magpie stuff. This is personal.
It’s Me versus It. Boy versus Wild.
In that moment I decide to go deep undercover. Between leaving the house and arriving at the bus stop tomorrow morning, no bird, no living thing, will know where I am. Look up ‘invisible’ in the dictionary and there’ll be a picture of me. (Although I’ll be invisible so I guess the picture will be of whatever is behind me.) I’m ready to heal my scars, win back my pride and let Sasha know that I’m made of awesome.
‘Seeya,’ I call to Mum as I head out the back door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘School.’
‘Why out the back? And what are you wearing? Where’s your uniform?’
I let the door slam.
‘Whatever you’re up to,’ she calls, ‘you’d better move it! Four minutes till the bus.’
I scooch down low and dart across the yard to the base of our tall timber fence. Bando dances around my feet, trying to get me to throw a drool-soaked plastic hamburger for him. ‘Shoo!’ I say, and I hide in the low hedge. I’m dressed all in green – green trackies, an old green long-sleever and a green cap with mould on it that I found in the laundry. My uniform is underneath.
I peer through the hedge, along the side of our house, to see the enemy on top of his pole out front. Back turned. Perfect. Time for me to disappear. I reach for the top of the fence and pull myself up with a grunt. I slip over and down the other side into our neighbour Lisa’s garden. I fall to my belly and sniper crawl through the long grass till I’m out of enemy sight. I’m doing pretty well until halfway across the yard when Frisbee, Lisa’s dog, starts barking.
‘Sssshhhh, ssssshhhhh,’ I whisper. ‘Quiet! It’s just me, Fris.’
But The Fris keeps yapping as she speeds towards me from her kennel near the back door. She is small and white, a lap dog, but she looks kind of vicious right now, baring her tiny, razor-sharp teeth. She doesn’t like me much and I can’t take any more of this barking. I make a dash fo
r the next yard. Just as I reach the fence, she nips me on the ankle. I throw myself over into a garden bed filled with pink and white rose bushes. I peel my sock down and check my ankle. It has little teeth marks on it and specks of blood.
Something moves at the corner of my vision. It’s the magpie swooping into the mango tree in our backyard. It leans forward on its toes, eyes alert, wings slightly raised, ready to strike.
‘Thanks,’ I whisper to Frisbee, who is still yapping at me through the fence.
Only two more yards after this and I’ll be at Sasha’s. Then I’ll just bolt down the side of her house to the bus stop.
‘What are you doing in my garden, boy?’ says a voice.
Nuts. It’s the old man with the wild white hair and the crazy eyes, the one who washes his car every day but never drives it. He’s calling to me from his kitchen window.
My eyes flick between him and the bird.
‘Get out of my roses,’ he says. ‘You’ll damage them.’ He disappears from the window as though he’s coming outside. I run across his yard, top speed, leapfrogging the birdbath. I wait for the dreaded flap of wings right behind my ears. But it doesn’t come.
I grab the top of two fence posts and launch myself over. I lay low, peering through the fence as the old man comes out into his yard. ‘Boy!’ he says.
The bird has disappeared from the mango tree. A bit of Weet-Bix rises up into my throat. I have about a minute to get to the bus stop. I still have this yard and Sasha’s to go and the bird is missing in action.
It’s quiet. Too quiet. I don’t like it. I spin around and see a blur of black and white streaking through the air. I search for its dark red eyes among that smudge of feathers. I get a lock on them and then the enemy does something totally unexpected – it freaks. Just for a second there is panic in its eyes. The bird swoops up into a tall gum tree. The tree hangs over a rusty, dark green shed on the other side of the yard, near Sasha’s fence.
My eyes are glued to the bird. I’m going to watch it all the way to the bus stop. My eyeballs are its kryptonite. I pretty much have to go underneath the tree to get over Sasha’s fence, but that’s okay. I take steady steps forward, nice and easy, eye to eye. Seconds later I bang into the garden shed. I lose concentration for a moment and take my eyes off the bird.
My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up Page 5
